Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 11:42:41 +1000 (EST)
From: Chris Butler <c.butler-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: BHA: Reading Dialectical Critical Realism: Part 5
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU


READING BHASKAR'S DIALECTIC

This is a fairly 'uncritical' summary of the last section of chapter 1 of
Dialectic that the reading group at QUT has just finished.  

DCR Part 5:  Chapter 1; Section 9

Epistemological Dialectic and the Problems of Philosophy

Bhaskar's aim here is to show how a dialectic refashioned in critical
realist terms (while still retaining elements of Hegel's insights) can shed
light on central concerns and problems of philosophy.

Bhaskar begins by interpreting the Understanding (U) - Dialectic (D) -
Reason (R) schema as essentially the same schema as for the epistemological
dialectic in the sciences.  The ro(r) transform prior to U corresponds to
the scientific training undertaken prior to "doing" science.  The U stands
for the practice of normal science in Kuhnian (or such like) terms.  The
sigma(s) transform corresponds to the emergence of anomalies/contradictions
in the existing research programme or paradigm.  At this point a negative
comment -dc` on the practice of the pre-existing community becomes possible
and reveals a lack or inadequacy (real negation) and inconsistency between
its own self-understanding and the way it is.  This point is D; the moment
of scientific revolution and hints at the possibility of the restoration of
consistency at R after the taf(t) transform. 

At the bottom of p.33 Bhaskar describes this epistemological dialectical
resolution as  involving  retroductive-analogical thinking.  Some comments
on this resolution involving paramorphic model-building or other
condensations (?) in order that the transformative negation is not an
exclusively radical one.  It is also heavily reliant on absented,
distanciated and transformed pre-existing knowledge (ref to Bachelard which
I am not clear about).  

p.34 - "The determinate result of this labour of transformative negation
(in the transitive process of science) will be the identification of a new
level of ontological structure described in a new theory T2 capable of
explaining most of the significant phenomena explained by T1 plus the
anomalies at D."

p.34 - Ref to ‘new sociology of science' and the interpretation of this
epistemological dialectic as a doxological dialectic in which the (v) and
(r) transforms are conceived as persuasive in their impact and
knowledge/doxa inextricably coupled to power (Foucault) or symbolic capital
(Bourdieu).  Not sure exactly how much to read into this.....

Bhaskar argues that Hegel's thought needs to be amended to the extent that
it cannot cope with the idea of negatively rational or dialectical thought
and positively or literally speculative thought in science. He argues that
the epistemological dialectic approximates a ‘logic of scientific discovery'. 

p.35 - He then launches into a diversion into the problem of induction or
the problem of ‘what warrant we have for supposing that the course of
nature will not change'.  Bhaskar argues that the ontology of
transcendental realism (with its conception of the stratification of
nature) provides each science with its own internal inductive warrant.  It
there is a real reason (eg molecular/atomic structure) then water must tend
to boil when it is heated.  Bhaskar posits this explanatory reason as the
result of the taf(t) transform to dialectical reason dr`; where there is an
identification of a new level of structure.  It remains the case that any
particular prediction may be defeated because of the world's open nature.
But ‘transcendental realism allows us to sustain the transfactuality
(universality) of laws in spite of the complexity and differentiation of
the world.'
  
p.35 - ‘An ontology of closed systems and atomistic events and a sociology
of reified facts and fetishized conjunctions are conditions of the
possibility of the traditional problem of induction and conditions of the
impossibility of its resolution.'  Bhaskar highlights the essential problem
with induction and a number of other philosophical dilemmas/paradoxes is
the absence of a real (non-conventional) reason located in the nature of
things, for things to be associated in the way they are.  

Bhaskar also highlights the importance of the idea of stratification to
overcome the problem of universals:  chemists are justified in classifying
certain materials together on their atomic configuration; the reason is
their structure.  But the same rule doesn't apply for greengrocers and
given the lack of deep ontological commonality, a classification system
based on resemblance works better than a realist one (though Bhakar argues
critical realism can accommodate this).

p.36 - ‘In general, theoretical science is concerned only with what kinds
of things there are insofar as it illuminates the generative mechanisms of
nature; and is only concerned with what things do insofar as it illuminates
the structured entities of nature.'  

Some reference to clue to a rational theory of truth to be discussed later
but based on the notion that ‘when we know why something is true our
assumption that it is true is grounded in a way that it is not when we are
only subjectively empirically certain of it'.

Bhaskar's main point in this section is to connect critical realism,
dialectic (esp Hegelian) and essential concerns of philosophy.  He argues
that the absence of a non-arbitrary principle of stratification is the
critical diagnostic key to a range of philosophical problems which are
homologues/analogues of the problem of induction.  However a warning that
so far the discussion has been limited to level 1 (1M) and that things are
bound to get more complex from here on.  More discussion and
systematization of Hegelian dialectic in Chapter 4....


Chris 
______________________________________________________________________________

Chris Butler                             E-Mail:     c.butler-AT-qut.edu.au
Justice Studies                          Telephone:  +61 7 3864 3733
Faculty of Law                           Fax:        +61 7 3864 3992
    
QUT
Victoria Park Rd              
Kelvin Grove
Qld
Australia  4059         " 'Tis all in peeces, all cohaerence gone."  
                               (John Donne)        
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